Genaro Garcia-Luna Accused of Stealing $600 Million from Mexican Government

"Socalj" for Borderland Beat

Genaro García Luna, Secretary of Public Security in the six-year term of Felipe Calderón, is said to have received millions of dollars from the Sinaloa Cartel between 2000 and 2019.

Genaro García Luna, after retiring from public service in the Mexican federal government in 2012, continued to collaborate with the Sinaloa Cartel and fill his pockets with drug money, as notified by the United States Department of Justice to Judge Brian Cogan. And although acts of corruption dot the governments of Vicente Fox and Enrique Peña Nieto, the core of the accusation is in what happened during the administration of Felipe Calderón. In this case, there will also be figures such as the 600 million dollars that García Luna allegedly stole from the treasury.

The argument was given by US federal prosecutors, led by Breon Peace, in opposition to the defense who asked Cogan to prohibit "the wealth and luxuries" that his client accumulated after 2012 as evidence.

"The Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) - of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit of Mexico (SHCP) - reports that García Luna stole $250 million while he was Secretary of Public Security," the prosecutors quoted in the letter delivered to Cogan.

In another sealed document, which is attached to the letter, prosecutors deliver detailed information regarding the defendant's finances to the Eastern District Federal Court in Brooklyn, New York.

In the lawsuit filed in Miami, Florida, which is on hold for now, due to his trial in Brooklyn, by the Mexican government against García Luna and his partners from a security consulting firm, it is indicated that the “theft” exceeds $250 million.

"Throughout his career as a public servant in the federal government, García Luna stole $600 million," says the investigation.

Friend, adviser, right-hand man, and Secretary of Public Security of former President Felipe Calderón, García Luna was also director of the now-defunct Federal Investigation Agency in the presidency of Vicente Fox, also a PAN member.

Peace exposed Judge Cogan – in charge of the drug trafficking trial against García Luna, which began on Monday the 9th – that in his courtroom and before the jury they will prove to him how the defendant continued to receive money from the Sinaloa Cartel for drug trafficking in 2012 to 2019.

García Luna's financial history involves mysterious transactions that US prosecutors promise to prove in relation to the international transfer of narcotics.

For example, the FIU reports that, when García Luna was Secretary of Public Security, transfers were made from government accounts under his charge or under his supervision to bank accounts established in financial institutions in Panama, Caribbean countries, and Israel.

Documents on the millionaire deposits and payments that would add up to the $600 million looted from the Mexican treasury are part of the evidence that the United States government allegedly has in its possession thanks to its collaboration with the SHCP.

Source Proceso